Saturday, July 23, 2011

BKK Bagel Bakery

Many people have asked me..."Have you been to the bagel place"? And; my answer has always been..."Not yet, but very soon". Anyway; we were having a dim-sum/peking duck lunch at Gaysorn with friends and the discussion came up from the friends we were having lunch with..."Have you been to the bagel place"? That's it! I decided that after our dim-sum/peking duck lunch that we were going to 'the bagel' place for a coffee and a bagel even if we stuffed our faces with too much Chinese food.

The bagel place is called...BKK Bagel Bakery. It has such a following in town (especially with Americans living in Bangkok who I am assuming miss their bagel fix) that when we arrived at BKK Bagel Bakery; there was no seats for us. The place was packed (with Americans).

But then again, the place is very easy to fill up. BKK Bagel Bakery itself is very small (space wise)...I think around 25 square meters, has only five very small tables and a counter with four tall counter stools (this is where we ended up sitting). There is not much decor or ambiance to the place. It is just a cozy hang-out place. No one cares for atmosphere...they come to BKK Bagel Bakery for one thing...the BAGELS.

Since we sat at the counter; we had the perfect view of the chalk board menu as well as the 'special bagel sandwiches' that were printed out on paper and pasted under the chalk board menu. All the bagel sandwiches looked really good & yummy. But, we thought they were on the expensive side...the Tuna melt or the Reuben cost 225 baht. Or the Open-faced tongue sandwich at 200 baht.

Though we were all stuffed from our lunch. We still decided to try a bagel. We first wanted to order one of the bagel sandwich choices, but decided not to order one because it just felt so wrong to be such gluttons. So, instead we decided to share one bagel.

We chose a Sea-salt bagel and a salmon & capers spread to go with it.

Of course; we needed dessert after our big lunch. We had a New York Cheesecake topped with blueberry (95 baht).

The selection of the bagels of the day. I bought two sea-salt bagels for our breakfast (35 baht each bagel).

The selection of the spreads for the bagels. I bought two pots of basic cream cheese to go with our bagels (30 baht each pot).

The selection of daily home made sweets...chocolate cookies (20 baht) on the left, short bread lemon squares (45 baht) on the right and chewy brownies (45 baht) in the back.

It was a big coincidence that one of our lunch friends was visiting Bangkok from New York. So; of course she was THE expert on bagels. At first she was skeptical that Bangkok could have authentic bagels like in New York. But after we tasted one bagel she started to believe.

On top of that; we talked to the owner (a New Yorker). He told us that he did try all the bagels places in New York. But there was one specific place that he thought had the best bagels and wanted to emulate them. The popular bagel place is called Absolute Bagels; a bagel shop on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and you will not believe who actually owns and runs the Absolute Bagels...Thais, that's right...Thais. We thought this was cool & funny at the same time that Thais are running the best bagel bakery in Manhattan.

Overall; we are amazed that it has taken this long to have a decent bagel place in Bangkok. BKK Bagel Bakery does promise proper, boiled-then-baked bagels just like in New York. So no wonder that BKK Bagel Bakery has such a huge American following...but I am sure the rest will follow. The service is friendly but a bit blur (maybe because the place was too busy for them to handle); but I ordered one iced coffee and they brought me two. My friend was kind enough to drink & pay for their mistake. The prices are reasonable for some items but expensive on others. But in the end; from what I saw, no one really minded paying a higher price for bagels in Bangkok than in New York.